Parker House Rolls
February 24, 2010
Ok. I’ve come to terms with the fact that I have housewife tendencies. It’s true. Don’t judge me… that would be rude.
I’ve tried to ignore these urges. I’ve tried to pass it off as a phase… but really? This can’t go on. I’m going to have to own my housewife tendencies. Now seems like as good a time as ever to fess up.
See… yesterday afternoon I put on my frilly 1950′s apron, pulled my hair back, put on my giant fake pearl earrings and made homemade dinner rolls. The apron and pearls are essential, so is a cigarette and a stiff cocktail if I’m to believe what I see on Mad Men.
So there I am in my kitchen, proudly clad in my housewife gear, hand kneading some pretty sexy roll dough, thinking I’ve got it pretty kush when I realize that my housewife fantasy is missing two things… a… um… er… husband… and mud covered children that I have to chase around the house to get into the bath.
So. Ok. Fine. My housewife tendencies are really just an excuse for me to play dress up for an afternoon. And rolls and butter? Just the awesome perk of my extended dress up games.
Pretty pretty dinner rolls. This luscious dough comes together with just ten minutes of hand kneading. They’re buttery and sweet, and have some thickness and weight without being dry and boring. They’re so lovely. You’ll feel all sorts of impressed with your abilities.
This recipe is a classic. Parker House Rolls are said to have originated in the 1870′s (whaaaat!?) at the Parker House Hotel in Boston. Old school.
keepin’ it real.
Parker House Rolls
recipe from The Gourmet Cookbook
makes 20 rolls
Print this Recipe!
3 tablespoons warm water (105 to 115 degrees F)
3 tablespoons sugar
1 (1/4-ounce) package (2 1/2 teaspoons) active dry yeast
1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter
1 cup whole milk
2 cups bread flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
3/4 – 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
Stir together warm water, 1 tablespoons sugar and yeast in a small bowl until yeast in dissolved. Let stand until foamy, about five minutes. If the mixture does not foam up, throw it out and start over with different yeast. Foam means that the yeast is livin’.
Melt 3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) butter in a small saucepan. Add the milk and heat until lukewarm. Pour into a large bowl and add yeast mixture, remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar, bread flour, and salt. Stir with a wooden spoon until just combined.
Stir in 3/4 cup all-purpose flour, dump out onto a clean work surface and begin to bring the dough together into a ball. If your dough is too sticky to handle, add up to 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour a tablespoon at a time until the dough is just slightly sticky.
Knead dough until a smooth and elastic dough begins to form, adding more all-purpose flour as needed. The dough will be smooth, satiny and just slightly sticky after 10 minutes. Good job! Form dough into a ball and place in a large, buttered bowl, turning the dough so that the entire ball is covered. Cover with plastic wrap and a towel and let rest n a warm, draft free place until doubled in size, about 1 hour.
Butter a 9×13-inch baking pan. Divide dough into 20 equal pieces. Roll each one into a ball and arrange evenly in 4 rows of 5 in a baking pan. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm, draft free place until almost doubled in size, about 45 minutes.
Using a floured chopstick or the edge of a ruler, make a deep crease down the center of each row of rolls. Let rolls rise, loosely covered for 15 minutes.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F and place a rack in the center of the oven.
Melt the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter and cool slightly. Brush the tops of the rolls with butter and place in the oven for 20-25 minutes, until golden brown. Cool rolls in the pan for 5 minutes then remove and serve warm. Reheat rolls wrapped in foil in a 375 degree oven if you’d like to eat them the next day with butter and jam. Serious yum.
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These look delish. I will probably make them for my visiting family this weekend. depends if they are nice to me or not.
Mae,
yes, punching the dough down after the first proof is necessary. it helps release some of the excess CO2 in the dough, which allows the yeast to keep working. There are other reasons, and this is a page with a lot of good info:
www.baking911.com/bread/101_rise.htm
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Hi Sam,
Thanks for that, as I think Joy did not state that in the recipe. and I was my 2nd time making bread :)
Cheers,
Mae
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Hey! Wow these look delicious! But I do have one quick baking question:
Does anyone know about baking bread, or rolls, with fresh Yeast? I live in Sweden and we don’t have the dry stuff here. I’ve baked with the fresh yeast quite a bit, but would like to try these rolls, and some other recipes. I am not sure if I am using the proper amount of yeast! Are there any good conversions from dry yeast to fresh yeast you could recommend to me?
Thanks :)
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i believe that a cake of yeast = 2 1/4 teaspoons of dry. rough estimate. Small cakes though the one oz size. I used to get them in the 1 lb size when I baked in the bakery with my father :)
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Yummy! I could a couple of those right now.
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Joy – I love your recipes!
My rolls taste good but (like a few others) are flat and didn’t seem to rise properly. I left it longer than the recipe said to rise & my yeast was brand new. Any suggestions?
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did everyone have flat rolls!? yeesh! my rolls weren’t crazy, big, tall tolls… they were fairly squat but still had a light tenderness to them. yours?
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nopes, even though i did not punch the dough, i think i just hit it a lil’ because it usually states in bread recipes but i wasnt sure whether i was supposed to punch it in the first place.
Joy, what happens if I poof the dough longer than the time stated?
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Well mine definately don’t look like yours do in the photos, Joy. I am going to make a second batch this week and *fingers crossed* will have more luck this time!
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Oooh, I want to make these- thanks!
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Back in the dark ages, 1966, and I was a mother and housewife who loved to cook and I always bought the Pillsbury Bake Off recipes that they publish each year. Grand Prize that year was $25,000.00. There was a recipe for Parkerhouse rolls that used a package of egg custard mix. These rolls are absoultely to die for! I still have the book, stained and falling apart. I have made these rolls and have always had rave reviews. It seems like I never see these at resturants anymore and it was delightful that the first time here I see an old favorite. Will try yours for sunday dinner.
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The rolls look great, but more importantly I glad I am not the only one with housewife tendencies and no husband. Cats don’t count do they?
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Yesterday I made my second lot of these breadrolls. I’m not sure what I did differently but they turned out…perfectly! My flatmates even snuck them during the night when I wasn’t watching (a sign of good cooking, I’d say!)
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I’m an Exchange Student in Argentina and I made these rolls for my host family yesterday. They came out great! Like others have said, they were a little flat but that doesn’t matter.
My family loves them! More than half of them were gone within 15 minutes… but not before I could sneak some and hide them for those early school mornings. :) They still taste great after a quick pop in the toaster or oven.
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made these for my family’s easter dinner. they loved them. so easy. so delicious.
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Thanks for posting this recipe! I made the rolls on the weekend. Thankfully they didn’t turn out flat, and they were a huge hit at the potluck I attended.
This was only the second time I’d worked with yeast. When I rolled my balls of dough, they didn’t look as smooth as yours. Any ideas why? Too much flour? Too much kneading?? I kneaded my dough with my KitchenAid dough hook.
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I am anxious to try this recipe.
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My sister LOVES parker house rolls for Thanksgiving. This year I’m going to make these in my continued attempt to steer my family away from having a “processed” Thanksgiving!
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These look like the ones that you buy in the grocery store raw and then bake them at home, my aunite would bring these at Thanksgiving and brush them with insane amounts of butter! I loved them !! Thanks for sharing this Joy you rock !
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I love the comments about the recipies to bake the rolls, but I remember when I used to be able to buy them at the grocery store. Are they available anymore?
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I saw your e-mail about wanting to purchase parker house rolls, I am also looking to buy the dough at the supermarket and have not been able to find it. I have you been successful in your search??? I live north of Boston. Thank you
Holly
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wow, so i just have to say, i wasn’t sure how these were going to turn out but i made them for christmas dinner and they were AMAZING. light, tender and buttery! i was a bit worried as i had actually missed the step for the 2nd rise when i originally read the recipe, so i had to rush that step a bit in order to make sure these came out in time for the meal, but they were still fabulous. thanks for the delicious recipe :).
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I wonder if you could make these in a mixer with a dough hook?
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Speaking of dough hooks, I’m thinking maybe getting your hands into it might actually be the best thing to do. I’m thinking of trying that one of these days. I have a Kitchen Aid stand mixer, too, and having a dough hook is certainly a nice convenience, but honestly I’ve never ended up with good yeast bread of any kind using a dough hook. Maybe doing it the “old-fashioned way” is best. My guess is that by using your hands, you can tell when it’s kneaded just enough, while I’m likely to give in to the temptation to let it get a thorough kneading with the dough hook. Even though I don’t want to overdo it, perhaps the dough hook just can’t help itself. I do love fresh bread, however, and being able to develop that magic touch would be nice.
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Can’t wait to try this recipe!
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These are fantastic and so flexible- I neglected to brush the tops with the rest of the butter and didn’t let them rise as much as I should since I was time crunched so they were on the smallish side, but they tasted so good and fluffy! And with 2 TB less butter! What a success:)
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Tot’s to you Joy!
Best Rolls Ever.
To those who had flat rolls make sure that your milk and butter mixture is not to hot. Or it kills your yeast, I checked my temp and it was 155 degrees so I sat it on ice until it cooled to 115-118 then added it to the flour and yeast mixture. My rolls were perfection, and I will never buy rolls again ;). Perfect to freeze too! If you put them on your sheet pan in the balls and freeze them for about 2 hours then place them in freezer bags or containers. You can always have fresh rolls ;-)
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About freezing…does anyone know if you have to let them rise again from the freezer? How long? Thanks.
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I know I’m late to the party, but wanted to add two website I’ve found that show how to transform pieces of dough into those perfectly round balls.
www.kingarthurflour.com/blog/2009/11/12/the-one-thing-i-have-to-bake-every-thanksgiving-pull-apart-butter-buns/
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D18X9Pk-Ys
The King Arthur site shows how to pinch the dough on the bottom and then roll the dough into a ball.
Marsha
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